05 Mar, 2020 12:52 pm
Your Local Bookstore: A Powerful Weapon in the Fight Against Poverty
We live in strange times. Technologically, we have tools at our disposal that were once reserved only for the wealthy. Companies and governments around the world have spent trillions of dollars to make sure that the mobile devices in our pockets are constantly connected to one another. With just a few taps, your mobile can connect to a phone down the street or a computer an ocean away.
And yet poverty surrounds us. We, or one of our neighbours, might be affected by poverty and, if we are lucky enough not to be affected, we’re never far removed from people in our community who lack the basic necessities they need to get by every day.
But poverty isn’t just about lacking basic needs such as food, healthcare, water and a decent income. There’s a new kind of poverty plaguing the world, and it’s affecting our children more than anyone.
It’s called “learning poverty.”
The price of learning poverty
Learning poverty occurs when children attend the regular number of years of schooling, but their education is of such low quality that it leaves them lacking the basic skills they’ll need to thrive as adults. The World Bank tells us that learning poverty is skyrocketing and this means devastating effects on children’s potential for success as adults.
Learning poverty hits reading ability especially hard. In low-to-middle income countries throughout the world, over half of all children in their later years of primary education can’t read and understand a simple story.
We know how vital literacy is to navigating life successfully. From street signs and restaurant menus to keeping up with news and making use of the internet, reading is fundamental to nearly everything we do. If our children finish school lacking the ability to read effectively, they leave without the single most important thing they were there to learn.
Now for the good news
Thankfully there’s a powerful weapon available to us in the fight against this kind of poverty. We just need to make more use of it.
This weapon is your friendly neighbourhood bookshop.
Your bookshop is a world of possibilities. A visit to your local bookshop with our children opens up a world of possibilities.
When we’re helping them find books to read that stimulate their minds and expand their horizons, we’re helping them take a huge step out of the void left by substandard education.
When we’re helping them with reading at home, we’re filling in the gap left by learning poverty.
When we’re sitting down with them, sharing a book, we’re providing them with one on one attention in our busy lives, a deep bonding activity.
And, of course, if our children see us enjoying a book ourselves, we’re providing a great model for them.
While the system may fail our children, we can work to ensure their success by doing something as simple as sitting down with them and opening a book.
Ideas to try:
- Start up a family conversation about favourite stories. What stories were you told as a child, that you can tell your children? Can they draw scenes from the stories?
- Play a family game: “If I wrote a book, it would be about ______ and I would call it _____”
- Make a list with your children about the types of stories they might like to explore: adventure, animals, magic, friendship?
- Create a family book club.
Want to learn a marketable skill? Want to be inspired? Want to be entertained?
We’ve got just the book for you.
Here at Sahan Books, we stock thousands of English-language books. Stop by our shop or browse our online catalogue to choose a book that just might change your life.
05 Mar, 2020 12:52 pm
It Has Never Been More Important to Learn English. Here’s Why.
What if I told you there was a secret code being used by people all around the world to communicate with people who don’t speak their language? What if I told you this code was already in use by hundreds of millions of people, and billions more are learning how to use it?
It’s a secret code that will instantly make you more marketable to employers, especially in today’s connected world of business. It’s a code that will make you a better, more effective communicator, and, because of that, you’ll gain more opportunities and incredible advantages when competing for jobs in today’s most powerful industries.
The good news is that knowing the code is within your grasp. The code is a language, and that language is English.
Why English?
English is the most common second language in the world. So, while a German might not speak Somali or Arabic and you might not speak German, there’s a good chance that you could still conduct business together if you both spoke English.
Scenarios like this play out in industries and workplaces all around the world every day. Computer technology, science, and aviation are all rooted in English. Over half of the internet is written in English. Most international communication happens in English. Today’s business transcends all borders and is enabled by a global workforce that is able to communicate with one another through a mutual understanding of English.
Being able to communicate effectively in English is like having a superpower.
How to get started
One of the best ways to learn English is to immerse yourself in English language books. Yes, by all means get hold of some specialist teach-yourself-English books, but practice your new skill by reading native English books that interest you, too. You’ll expand your cultural horizons, too! While it may not be as fast or as easy to read a Harry Potter novel in English as it might be in your native language, doing so adds incredible depth and detail to the experience – depth and detail that might otherwise be lost in translation.
The business world has changed so much over the years that, in some cases, it’s unrecognizable from the way we did things even at the start of the 2000s. Technology has paved the way for advances that rival even some of the best science fiction. But if you’d like to be a part of today’s global workforce and pursue its opportunities, you first have to take the steps necessary to be able to compete and communicate.
Using English language books to learn and enhance your understanding of English is a huge (and fun) step in that direction.
Want to learn a marketable skill? Want to be inspired? Want to be entertained?
We’ve got just the book for you.
Here at Sahan Books, we stock thousands of English-language books. Stop by our shop or browse our online catalogue to choose a book that just might change your life.
05 Mar, 2020 12:51 pm
Need a question answered? Just pull out your phone. Our one-tap at-a-glance technology makes it easy to forget that before the internet, the total sum of human knowledge was contained, stored, and passed on through books. Even before we could bind together written pieces of paper, we were inscribing information into bricks of clay. When we hold a book in our hands today, we rarely stop to consider that we hold a method of information storage that has spanned millennia.
Using books to participate in humanity’s ongoing pursuit of knowledge required actual effort. Research meant conducting a different kind of search, as information contained on one page was fed by the context of the pages around it. While the answer to a question might have been found on one specific page, the information provided by the surrounding pages added depth to the answer, and gave us an understanding that took us deeper into the true meaning of what we were learning.
Some might argue that, as information has become easier to access, we have lost our appreciation for the context of that information. We may Google a newsworthy event to learn more about it, but we may not gain an understanding into why it happened. We may search for a celebrity’s birthday, but we may not gain an understanding into why that figure is significant. Gaining that kind of context today requires digging deeper and “going down a rabbit hole” of links rather than flipping through the pages of a biography or history book.
A Google search does have value, but learning from books is a more complete, more context-driven way of learning. And the best way to harness the power that comes with learning from books is by becoming a better reader. Becoming a better reader allows us to comprehend what we’re reading in more depth. It allows us to follow and analyse information and draw our own conclusions. It allows us to test out those conclusions, and improve our skill of critical thinking - a skill we all so badly need in a world so driven by combative approaches and poor reasoning.
Get started on your own learning journey by visiting your local bookshop. There’s a wealth of information on its shelves just waiting to be explored.
How to Get the Reading Habit
Depending on who you ask, it can take anywhere from a couple weeks to a couple of months for a new activity to become a habit. And many of us want to get the right habits to become an early riser, an exerciser, and, yes – even a reader.
Many of us don’t read as often as we’d like, because life feels just too busy. Grabbing the time to sit down, open a book, and get lost in words for a while can feel self-indulgent or time-wasting. And we’ve developed new habits of activity: working, endlessly scrolling on our phones, watching TV or any one of countless other activities that we just, well, do. It’s ingrained. Are we enjoying it? Maybe. But maybe not.
Everything you do contributes to strengthening a habit, and weakening another. Decide to watch just one more episode of (insert popular tv show here) instead of taking that ten minute walk round the block for some air? You’re strengthening your TV-watching habit, and weakening your mental and physical health habit.
The good news is that, if you want to open yourself up to the possibility of reading more, it can be as simple as acknowledging the things that were getting in your way, and making the conscious decision to overcome them and turn that into reading time instead.
Three ways to get started:
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Read what interests you
Don’t read something because you think you’re “supposed” to read it. Read it because you want to read it. Yes, we all have the classics on our reading list but, frankly, sometimes there’s nothing better than getting into a less highbrow thriller, murder mystery or cheesy romance. Reading for pleasure is the whole point.
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Set aside specific times to read.
You might prefer to close out your day by reading for a bit before bed. Or you might like to while away the bus ride to work with your book-of-the-moment. Many people started reading seriously when they had a serious commute. Setting aside a reading time each day makes it much easier to ditch the distractions and will condition you to read, the same as getting up at the same time every morning conditions you to start your day. Your mind will start to expect the stimulation that comes from reading and opening your book will become as much a part of your day as going for a walk or eating your dinner.
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Find and talk with other readers.
Common interests bind us to one another and finding someone who enjoys the same kinds of books as you (or even has read some of the same books!) can be exhilarating. It also reinforces your own growing love of books and keeps the momentum going. These conversations can be formalised into book clubs or can be as informal as having a chat about a book with a friend over coffee. When we talk about books with others, we’re sharing something special, we’re finding out about each other, and ourselves.
With so many opportunities to form bad habits in our day to day lives, it’s nice to know that it’s just as easy to start a good habit as well. And, while it might take a little work at first, getting into the habit of reading is good for your mind, your imagination and for your mental health!
So, what are you waiting for? Pick up a book and get started today!
Want to learn a marketable skill? Want to be inspired? Want to be entertained?
We’ve got just the book for you.
Here at Sahan Books, we stock thousands of English-language books. Stop by our shop or browse our online catalogue to choose a book that just might change your life.